Take My Life

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

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  Contents

  Winston Graham

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Winston Graham

  Take My Life

  Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the series of historical novels about the Poldarks. Graham was born in Manchester in 1908, but moved to Perranporth, Cornwall when he was seventeen. His first novel, The House with the Stained Glass Windows was published in 1933. His first ‘Poldark’ novel, Ross Poldark, was published in 1945, and was followed by eleven further titles, the last of which, Bella Poldark, came out in 2002. The novels were set in Cornwall, especially in and around Perranporth, where Graham spent much of his life, and were made into a BBC television series in the 1970s. It was so successful that vicars moved or cancelled church services rather than try to hold them when Poldark was showing.

  Aside from the Poldark series, Graham’s most successful work was Marnie, a thriller which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964. Hitchcock had originally hoped that Grace Kelly would return to films to play the lead and she had agreed in principle, but the plan failed when the principality of Monaco realised that the heroine was a thief and sexually repressed. The leads were eventually taken by Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. Five of Graham’s other books were filmed, including The Walking Stick, Night Without Stars and Take My Life. Graham wrote a history of the Spanish Armadas and an historical novel, The Grove of Eagles, based in that period. He was also an accomplished writer of suspense novels. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Private Man, was published by Macmillan in 2003. He had completed work on it just weeks before he died. Graham was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 1983 was honoured with the OBE.

  Dedication

  For Valerie Taylor

  who first suggested it and

  who worked with me throughout

  on the original screenplay –

  in affection and esteem.

  Chapter One

  A year or so after the end of the war an Italian opera company visited London.

  There in the loveliest theatre in England, under the gold insignia of the young queen (Victoria), and surrounded (at a distance) by the faded lettuce leaves, horse droppings, flower petals, bits of blown straw and stray tomatoes of the district’s other industry, they gave a season of the familiar works of Rossini, Verdi, Puccini and Leoncavallo.

  Certain features distinguished this company from others which had come and gone before; its enthusiasm, its un-evenness of performance, its occasional extravagances and occasional brilliances, and its lack of elderly overweight prima donnas. There was also the phenomenon that among its principal sopranos it included an English girl.

  Philippa Shelley had been studying at Milan in 1939. Desperately wanting to finish her course under Ruggero, she had stayed on during the ‘phoney’ war, and then, with Europe crumbling about her, she had timed her exit twenty-four hours late and had paid for her error with four years’ internment in Sicily.

  Soon after her release she had come in contact with the two high officers, one British and one American, who had sponsored an operatic venture for the entertainment of their troops, and within a month she had been singing La Bohème in Palermo. As all southern Italy fell into the net of the Allies, so the talent on which they could draw became wider, and at Naples and later in Rome Philippa had sung with all the leading Italians of the day. At the end of the war she had returned to England for a short time, but, finding no immediate opportunities, had made her way to France and then back to Italy. She had been very quickly offered an appointment by the directors of the San Giovanni Opera Company of Rome, who even after twelve months still occasionally paused to wonder at this strange fair northern girl who had not only been trained in Italy but in some curious manner had imbibed the ability to sing as usually only Italians could sing, born and bred to the hot sun and the smell of grape vines, people with free-flowing Latin temperaments to whom singing was an inherent gift and these songs familiar since childhood.

  Sometimes she seemed, unfairly, to have other qualities which many of their own singers lacked, acting ability, dramatic intelligence, a consistent quality of being able to live the part so that there was a rare emotional fusion of song and story. The directors of the San Giovanni had a very good idea of her general talents and would by now have angled her into signing a long-term contract at a relatively low salary if it had not been for the disagreeable influence of her husband, the British officer.

  Seventeen minutes before the curtain was due to rise on the first night at Covent Garden the Disagreeable Influence was picking his way among the back-stage commotion in the direction of his wife’s dressing-room. Nicolas James Talbot, MC, late Captain in the Coldstream Guards, was a well-set, good-looking young man, with a good-tempered easy poise and a charm of manner which generally had the effect of putting other people at their ease. Among the haste and last-minute disorganization of opening night, with final questions and instructions flung in a furious bombardment about his ears, he seemed to be the one calm man, the spectator at a curious battle, the detached observer with nothing to gain or lose. It would have taken a perceptive person to have seen that under the shell of his calm, tensions and anxieties moved freely enough, no less acute for having no visible outlet.

  In the dressing-room he found Franco Paroni, the conductor, exchanging confidences with Philippa which would have been better unspoken since they only repeated da capo the advice of the last rehearsal and the rehearsal before that. Paroni was always a bundle of nerves before a concert, and excitement is no less infectious back stage than measles in the schoolroom. Nick Talbot edged him conversationally towards the door and through it; then Philippa found an excuse to send her dresser on an errand, and they were alone.

  Even then, for a little while, though she rose at once to kiss him, he was aware of something separating them. It was always the same at these times: the opera star had a firm grip over the girl he had married. He did not mind, for they were both expressions of the one personality that he loved. Gently he listened to her last-minute complaints about the floats, which she said were too bright, to her doubts about the aria in Act Two, to her doubts of the opera itself, Butterfly, which he knew she did not like as well as some of the others and which she had come to imagine was not as popular with the British public as it had once been, to her regrets that Traviata had not been chosen to begin when Maddaleni, whom she greatly preferred, would have been co
nducting, and Ronsi singing with her.

  On all these things he chidingly reassured her, aware nevertheless that tonight the nervous strain was greater than it had ever been before.

  At length she said: ‘ It’s my own people, that’s truly what I’m scared of tonight. In Italy I was a stranger, appearing before people of a different race. They may be just as critical – even more so; but that isn’t what counts. When I was a little girl and my father and mother were away, I sang a song at a local concert and was a huge success. When they came back they asked me to sing it in my own drawing-room and I was a dismal flop. Well … don’t you see? This is my own drawing-room. And somehow those people out there will know it …’ She shivered. ‘Put your arms round me,’ she whispered, ‘and tell me I’m infallible.’

  He did so, and held her tight.

  ‘That’s very easy,’ he said. ‘You are infallible, darling.… But maybe that’s only for me. As for the others, I’ll tell you something you already know, you old fraud. That even when you sing badly you still have something no one else has. Just remember that. It’s something no one and nothing can take from you, and we’re going to get it tonight as we’ve never had it before. As for looks, you’re far the most beautiful opera singer I’ve ever seen –’

  ‘Oh, you’re prejudiced –’

  ‘Looks count. Perhaps they shouldn’t, but they do. And you can act; that’s still more rare. You’re infallible and you know it. In an hour they’ll know it. Believe me.’

  ‘I wish you were coming with me,’ she said. ‘ Out there on the stage. I shouldn’t mind then.’

  ‘I shall be. As near as I possibly can be in the box. If you want me any time, just whistle and I’ll hop out and join you.’

  She smiled. He was conscious of something changing in her attitude, as if her muscles were less taut.

  ‘Remember that first night in Naples,’ he said. ‘ You fairly bowled me over. Perfection in a woman. I thought by your eyes you were not Italian, but I never dared to hope you’d be English. Crikey! I went every night that week, and it wasn’t until the last night that I dared … Remember my humble and nervous approach? Knees fairly knocking. I’d far rather have faced the audience out there …’

  He talked on, trying in the few short minutes left to give her ease and confidence. Then Marie, her dresser, came in and got out the dark wig and darted meaning glances at the clock.

  Silently Talbot put a hand in his pocket and took out a small crystal elephant. With a side glance at Marie he handed it to Philippa.

  The girl looked down at it a moment and then, touched, smiled up into his eyes.

  ‘… Every time you’ve given me one of these they’ve done the trick.’

  That’s what they’re for,’ he said.

  ‘Remember, Nick, when I get out on the stage I’m going to forget all those white faces and think I’m just singing to you.’

  He said: ‘Suits me … All right, now?’

  She nodded. ‘All right.’

  He squeezed her arm and went out, began to walk back to his box.

  For all his assumed certainties he had moments of doubt as he threaded his way through the theatre-goers moving about the long corridors of the Opera House. He had not the slightest doubt of her capacities, but so much hung on tonight. Tastes, he knew, differed; and what might please an Italian audience would not necessarily please an English one, even though the Italians might be considered the better judges. It was the one danger, and he did not know enough about opera to be as sure as he sounded. And unlike her, he had no real fancy for a continental life. While he was stationed in Italy it had been splendid to be in the same city or within easy train or car distance of each other. Now that he was demobilized it was a different story. Poor at languages, unsympathetic to the Latin, he longed to make England or America their ground. This performance would largely decide their future.

  When he reached the box he was met by the harmonious conversation of the orchestra just below him; the tenor squeak of the violins, the reedy baritone of the cellos, upward trips of a flute; one, two, three, like a child climbing a stair. It was all tunefully noisy and warm and exciting.

  Joan Newcombe and Leslie had arrived, and he greeted his sister and her son with pleasure. It was the eleven-year-old Leslie’s first visit to opera, and he had been allowed to come as a special treat. He was shinier and smoother and neater than Nick had ever seen him before, as if he had been scrubbed and polished with an unsparing hand.

  ‘I say, Uncle Nick,’ he began in a stage whisper, ‘this is a ringside seat. How did you get it?’

  ‘Influence,’ Nick said. ‘I know the star slightly. But don’t think this is going to be a boxing match. Philippa doesn’t fight the conductor or anything. At least we hope not.’

  Joan smiled at him. The wine-red taffeta she was wearing brought out all the well-remembered colours in her hair.

  ‘Is she nervous?’

  ‘A bit. But she’ll be all right.’

  ‘It’s ‘‘house full’’, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes. They’re allowing thirty in for standing, but there was a queue of about a hundred when I looked out just now.’

  ‘Uncle Nick,’ Leslie said, ‘ you might tell me when to clap. A fellow at school says it’s bad form to make a row in the wrong place.’

  Staring over the audience, Nick said: ‘I’ll sit beside you and pinch you when it’s our turn to make a noise.’

  They were all in their seats now: that was a blessed regulation about closing the doors.

  Tier upon murmuring tier, box upon box, talking and settling, programmes lifted and let fall like leaves in an errant breeze. It was like the inside of a great loaf-shaped wedding cake, like a great inverted wedding cake, with all the icing on the bottom tiers. As your eyes climbed towards the roof, so the luxury and the brilliance exhausted itself in rows of peering anonymous faces staring down at the sugared almonds below. But they, the people in the gallery and the upper circles, were no less arbiters of the night’s success than the well-fed critics in the front rows of the stalls.

  The critics were numerous tonight, according to the manager. And other distinguished people were present.

  The curtain was going to be late; a bad thing, liable to fray a performer’s nerves and to make an audience out of patience.

  At last a little ripple of clapping spread about the house as Paroni made his appearance. Last-minute fears were gone, and he was master of the situation now. A moment’s consultation with his first violin, a rap, rap of his baton; the rustling and movement in the audience faded to a thin hissing murmur; the murmur died and there were a few moments of breathing quiet with a white cloak or a woman’s arm luminous in the half shadows of the boxes. Then Paroni raised his baton and the opera began.

  Chapter Two

  The wheel of London moved a turn. The earliest congestion of traffic had eased. In the half-lit dark people moved too, singly and in groups, hasty and leisured, strolling and talking, jostled each other, waited to cross, queued for the cinemas, crowded in milk-bars, moved furtively round chemists’ shops, argued and elbowed and sneezed and loitered and spat.

  Stars had moved up the sky and been obscured by a freckle of rain. A cold breeze beat up the narrower streets, and the bright cheap women of the town – those who had not retired after the war years – moved into convenient doorways and stamped their feet and talked about the influenza. A man in a grey weatherproof turned up the collar of his coat and edged into the stage door of the Opera House. The doorkeeper glanced up from his last edition extra, but seeing that he came no farther and had the look of a gentleman, did not question him.

  In the first box on the right Nick Talbot sat rather tautly, keen brown eyes fixed on the stage, nostrils a little flared. From time to time he smiled slightly. Beside him his sister, graceful and bright-eyed but a little languid, sat with one hand on her son’s arm.

  After half an hour’s fascinated gazing at his new aunt, Leslie had begun to taste a few mom
ents of boredom. He had kept it at bay so far by a number of mutely gleeful discoveries about the mechanics of the evening. The hairy hand with the gold signet ring which popped like a spider out of the small box at the front of the stage to turn over the pages of a just visible book, the curious periscope-like thing on which apparently a tiny mirror was set so that Hairy-Hand could see the conductor, the occasional glimpses of stage hands moving in the wings; these gave him something fresh to watch when the business of the evening dragged or he couldn’t follow the story.

  And there was something very interesting about the great lighted cavern of the orchestra pit, where every kind of musical instrument sawed and boomed and squeaked away; some even hidden under the stage, and all trying to drown poor Aunt Philippa just when she wanted to say something most.

  By way of further change he could glance up and about the darkened auditorium with its bright ‘EXITS’ staring at him like cats’ eyes from every turn and tier, but this sooner or later earned him a reproving squeeze from his mother’s hand and brought him back to the stage.

  An unexpected diversion came when he was the first to notice that a strange man in evening dress had entered their box and was trying to attract Uncle Nick’s attention. Leslie nudged the absorbed man beside him, and Talbot turned with an angry frown to know the reason of the interruption. Apologetically the man came a little forward and whispered something about Captain Talbot being wanted on the telephone. There was a brief irritated exchange, and then Nick’s frown cleared and with a shrug of apology to Joan Newcombe he crept out of the box.

  He was gone some minutes, and by the time he came back the first act was near its end. The curtain came down to a good deal of warm applause, but by the time the actors and actresses came forward to take their bows, some people in the stalls were already pushing their way out towards the bar where a thoughtful management had provided a cold buffet as well as the usual coffee and drinks. Under his breath Nick cursed the impatient and the ill-mannered, at the same time giving a brief explanation to Joan of his own apparent lapse. He was in fact elated as a result of his telephone call, and when the curtain had fallen for the fifth and final time he took Leslie out into the bar and bought him a drink of ginger pop. There, under the large muscular painting of Ariadne and Bacchus, he sipped whisky and listened to the conversation of the people about him.